Today's the day blog-readers! Having seen The Iron Lady last night and Carnage today, I'm ready and exited to complete my Golden Globes blog series and watch the ceremony tonight! In the interest of time, I'll be altering my format (I was inspired by Yahoo Movies' blog last night). Rather than writing a paragraph or more of commentary for each nominee, I'll write a paragraph on my pick for the winner and then commentate on all the other nominees at once. Lets pick up right where we left off...
Best Screenplay:
Apparently the Globes feel that due to their bisecting many of their categories into Drama and Comedy/ Musical, they really needed to consolidate when it came to their screenplay awards. So rather than having awards for both Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay, they have one hybrid category. This decision makes NO sense, but I digress...
Who Should Win:
Nat Faxon, Alexander Payne, Jim Rash - The Descendants
This screenplay accomplishes the rare feat of not trapping it's characters within it but rather allowing then to roam freely. Writing free will is no easy task. This is Payne's first screenplay since the pretentious and drastically over-rated Sideways and it's a 180 degree turn in the right direction. The script creates characters rich with depth, there are no archetypal figures here (even down to the complex role of an angry teenage daughter); and it avoids ever producing itself into a genre (when this story easily could have inspired a "grief movie"). And with a stellar cast that brings it to life (George Clooney possibly does his best work ever here), this sceenplay is my favorite to win.
Also Nominated:
In addition to The Descendants, there are two other adapted screenplays vying for a win: Sorkin's Moneyball and Clooney's The Ides of March. Watching Moneyball (before I even knew it was a Sorkin script), I was thinking that up until the brilliantly set-up baseball climax (the only real baseball scene in the entire film) it was very The Social Network-esque. Sorkin screenplays sound like Sorkin screenplays and Moneyball certianly does and benefits from it. It's hard to write an intellegent and emotionally-charged movie about baseball that isn't really about baseball, and Sorkin succeeds. Clooney's film, on the other hand was a bit of a disappointment. It had all the elements that a great picture needs, but my immediate reaction after leaving the theater was that the movie had a great story and cast that was brought down by poor directorial decisions and mediocre scripting -furthing my point that it isn't the story you tell, but the way in which you tell it. The candidate speeches were great and the pillow talk and romantic banter between Ryan Gosling and Evan Rachel Wood were a high point. But some of the talks between the politicians and lawyers and reporters seemed to meander about, lacking focus.
And then there are the original screenplays: Hazanavicius' script for The Artist and Woody Allen's for Midnight in Paris. The irony of The Artist's nomination must be noted, but in reality its script probably had to contain more specificity than any of its fellow nominees. And although Allen's script is wonderfully original, and delightfully whimsical (easily his best in years,) it still can't compete with the deft insight of the screenplay for The Descendants. But come Oscar time when this category will rightfully be split to award adaptations and originals separately, Allen's latest could stand a better chance.
Well blog-readers, as I did last year, I didn't start my Golden Globes blog early enough to finish. I need to learn to allow for more time to write about each and every nominee while keeping in mind the abundant cornucopia of nomination categories. So as with last year, I haven't made it past the Best Screenplay category, but one thing is different this time around... Last year's incomplete Globe entry stopped me in my blogging tracks -I couldn't finish it, thus I never published it, thus I just stopped blogging. Not so this time blog-readers! Rodney & Roger is here for good. So stay tuned as I'll be continuing my directors series that I started with my blog on Mike Mills' Beginners, and for my up to the minute Globe thoughts, check out my facebook page where I'll be making Globe posts throughout the night!
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